


Shadows on the Moon

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Finding Home Away From Home (GQ/NB Dean Winchester with Shadow Moon Fics) [20]
Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Celtic Mythology, Irish Mythology, Norse Religion & Lore, Once Upon a Time (TV), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Animals, Birds, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fae & Fairies, Fae Dean Winchester, Fae Magic, Forests, Mirrors, Multiple Crossovers, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Dean Winchester, Other, Owls, POV Dean Winchester, POV Second Person, Queer Shadow Moon, Queerplatonic Relationships, Ravens, Trans Character, Trans Dean Winchester, Trees, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: They tell themselves Shadow needs rest, and any hero would. But there's something more sinister at play and it's time to finally face up to it.





	Shadows on the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirensnares](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirensnares/gifts), [sumquisum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumquisum/gifts).



> Begun for a Froday (FFFC) Challenge, and posted in part, this is the finished fic after a few drafts. Second part was inspired by Fic_Promptly prompt: Face off.

It sinks in for you, what’s happened to Shadow, what maybe you let happen. He has never been angry at you directly for doing what you had to and following your intuition into a more stable life. He understands, just as you do, that you were trusting his Mr. Wednesday, your Odin, to make sure that Shadow would be okay while you were.

But in the end that had not been what happened.

So now there’s only one thing you can do in response. You can take down the force that imprisoned Shadow, you can decimate Technical Boy.

Maybe in an alternate universe something else happened, like Shadow going to mundane prison, but whatever Technical Boy dreamed up, no, it was worse, you know it was.

You’ve been lucky not to lose your Shadow in all this time, you’re lucky that somehow he’s kept it together enough to be yours, to make a life with you.

You are immensely grateful, immensely privileged, to have this man with you on your journey.

And now it’s time to show him beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would stop the world if it needed to happen to keep you two where you both want to be--together.

*~*~*

You have to decide if you will be fighting the not-quite-digital Digital Overlord on his own turf or not.

You could.

You have the technical skills to know your way around computers, around security, around and through so many electronic settings.

This was not so much your idea as a natural situation you fell into at school, and you feel the visceral ache of missing Berkeley, with the apartment you had with Shadow with all the colors on the walls and how you had first become family there.

*~*~*

You hear Odin’s call, and you find a mirror, and there he is.

“Remember, my love, my child, how this has gone before.” And yes. You do. Technical Boy tripping through the wires in your apartment and the way you had to run.

“Your own turf,” Odin says. “Your very own.”

*~*~*

“The forest,” Shadow murmurs sleepily as soon as you ask him the question. He’s been depressed, scared, hiding a little, not because you two have any trouble being brave, just because it’s all right to need recharge time.

That’s what you both tell yourself but you know Shadow will be weaker than he could be for as long as Technical Boy is roaming free.

And so it will be.

In the forest. Among the birds.

Of course.

*~*~*

By firelight you both prepare the blades. Along the ceiling, the faerie lights glow.

*~*~*

You set up a laptop among the trees and you put out the call.

He would never answer if he were particularly smart, but Technical Boy is young and arrogant, and he’s wanted to have an excuse to end Shadow Moon.

The ravens, the crows, the owls, even the feral cats are all waiting for a screech of modem noise under limousine tires. 

And at 11:11 your wish is known and it comes, and it matters not the time by the sun or the moon, they are all there.

Everything that is wild rises up in you and Shadow and the sky is dotted with the members of flock upon flock upon flock of birds, and the lights of your kindred, the fae, and maybe, you aren’t sure, the energy of more gods--the Morrigan or the Valkyrie--you do not call them, for they are not directly yours, but if they come in response to your Father Odin and his brother or other kin you will not show surprise.

The air is electric. The sky is darkening and the faeries are lightening the air.

And as he exits his vehicle, Technical Boy has no time for a villainous monologue. No time to set his feet upon mother earth. He is attacked even as he tries to stand from his seat, and a hundred animals tear him, a thousand faerie lights igniting the scene in stark brightness. For Shadow has proven his loyalty to the animals and those that light the dark and honor the old ways. He has prepared his offerings and been with those of old through the darkest of modern times. He has hung from the World Tree and spoken to Ratatosk, he has accepted the assistance of the faeries and belief has meant they are not alone. It has sustained them as well as it has sustained you.

The animals move back, and with his very own blade Shadow makes the final, cutting blow, and the one who thought he could best Shadow Moon falls to the earth and disintegrates into streams of digitized smoke and then nothing.

“I dedicate this death in the name of Odin,” Shadow says roughly.

When it is finished, Shadow is wild, free, and exhausted. You support each other as you make your way back to the car, not jet black or fire red but a plain white van that is yours for the occasion.

You realize, dimly, that Shadow is letting go as you move through the space together, in jagged noises you would not really understand if you hadn’t seen the kind of trauma he has relived every day since coming home to you.

You settle him in beside you and drive gingerly towards home.

In the driveway, none other than Shadow’s Mr. Wednesday, your Odin, stands. It is only the second time you have seen him in form, outside of a mirror. His grin is just as wolfish as it ever is, and he leans slightly as if his two ravens are holding him up. Beside him, his wolves, Geri and Freki, stand at attention, also bearing some weight.

“I came when you called,” Wednesday says, his voice raspy as if perhaps he too has been hanging somewhere, in wait. Perhaps it is what he prefers after all this time.

“I know a charm…” Wednesday says, and his hands come to rest on Shadow.

Shadow screams into the night and the animals take more and more of Wednesday’s weight.

For you it is perhaps surreal, not knowing what to make of Odin here, in the flesh. You know that for Shadow it is painful, drawing the rest of the misery and ichor from a wound.

When it is done, Shadow’s eyes are closed and your own mind allows Odin to fade back into the night in the space between one breath and the next.

And then you half-carry Shadow the rest of the way inside.

Now he will rest.


End file.
